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Super fast experience gain


ScreamingViolet

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I play in solo mode on ark mobile.

 

previously I have lamented at how slowly I seem to gain experience in relation to others. Despite having a permanent 2x buff from primal pass and having all the free time in the world to play others seem to climb through the levels at lightening speed. It might be worth noting that from my observations the exp gained from killing creatures on mobile doesn’t seem to earn you, or your tame, the same amount of experience that is listed within the wiki on gamepedia. It might not be of any revelance either.

 

today I just finished up collecting the artifact from the swamp cave. Killed a whole bunch of high lvl scorpions, but nothing that stressful as I’m on lvl 81 - wearing my well earned, super spiffy wetsuit and scuba gear, whilst riding my level 55(ish) direwolf. On my way in I saved my game and backed it up, as you do in solo. I also noted our experience. I was on lvl 81 with 412,353exp and my wolf was 4061exp.

after completing the cave, saving, backing up etc, I noticed that I had the pop up saying I had leveled up and could up my stats. I was surprised as when I went in I still had around 38,000 exp points to go. (At least I think that’s right, if lvl 82 requires 450,000) 

 

I was blown away when I saw that I now had 814,119!

im pretty sure I used a broth of enlightenment on myself as I went in, but there’s no way that I earned over 100k points from the cave. It took me months to get to 400k! 

 

Anyone have ave any ideas why this might’ve happened? Have you seen this before? If there’s any devs or moderators reading, do you know what’s going on?

im not complaining mind you, but I sure am curious and would love to repeat it if only I knew how.

 

 

p.s. Can you use potions and such like broth of enlightenment on your mount as well as yourself? And do those buffs stack if we both eat it?

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1 hour ago, JB1980 said:

That's strange...

Where do you get the black pearls to make the Broth of Enlightenment?

I only have a few from fishing...

I do believe that I got them from free gifts. I have read that you can harvest them from trilobites, using a therizinosaur will get you the best harvest rate. However I’ve not come across any trilobites as yet, but I’ve also not really explored the ocean yet.

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Is this your first trip into the cave? My first trip got me from lvl 74 to lvl 80 but I've done the cave at least 6 more times and I haven't gained a single level. Also, were there dragonflies? These give a lot of xp to kill but won't respawn.

I have probably 35 black pearls, 6 from fishing, 1-2 from sea scorpions, and 28 from killing a squid.

Also you only need 3 pieces of scuba and 2 ghille to survive but I personally use 2 scuba and 3 ghille with enduro stew, blood packs, or bronto eggs to keep alive though sometimes when all I want is the artifact I dont use any as it takes like 5 minutes to get the artifact.

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I’m pretty sure that you’re granted a massive amount of xp when completing a cave for the first time (I would compare it to beating a boss or a level for the first time on other games), the harder the cave the higher the rewards.  This would explain the seemingly improbable jump in experience, and also follows the fundamental progression formula used within these styles of games.   After the initial completion, there appears to be no xp rewards given for future runs, merely the xp gain for kills, and rewards for the artefact. 

This is just my hypothesis and may not be true, but for me it makes sense. 

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11 minutes ago, HavelockVetinari said:

I’m pretty sure that you’re granted a massive amount of xp when completing a cave for the first time (I would compare it to beating a boss or a level for the first time on other games), the harder the cave the higher the rewards.  This would explain the seemingly improbable jump in experience, and also follows the fundamental progression formula used within these styles of games.   After the initial completion, there appears to be no xp rewards given for future runs, merely the xp gain for kills, and rewards for the artefact. 

This is just my hypothesis and may not be true, but for me it makes sense. 

It does make sense in a way. However it’s taken me months to earn 400k exp, so to be rewarded that much from a single run through swamp cave, it’s just a bit much.

The other thing is that I have only very recently (past week or so) started doing caves and had already completed the southern cave twice, the lava cave and the central one, all without such a gigantic jump in experience. I jumped about 6 levels in one go (81- 87 I think)

 

Theres a theory I’ve been trying to look into, and I might put a post in the bugs and support section to see if I can get a response from someone behind the scenes... I don’t think my primal pass has been giving me my 2x buff and my hypososis is that something in the game suddenly realised this and paid up.

In support of this theory I have found that the amount of experience I’m gathering from killing creatures is often well below the amount you Should receive for killing that species according to the wiki. Though it could just be that mobile has a different structure for experience gain, there could also be massive procedural holes in my data collection and analysis. 

On the opposite side of things I’m left wondering how the game could’ve realised I was suddenly owed so much experience. If it had happened right after the most recent update I would put more weight on this, but as it happened quite a number of playing hours after updating, I’m slightly sceptical about assuming that’s the answer.

 

this is a nightmare for someone like me with an over abundance of curiosity and such a strong desire to scream “but why?” lol

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I don’t use primal pass so I can’t comment on that side of things for you, but I don’t think that (the game suddenly realising your lack of xp gain and adjusting itself accordingly) would happen.  What seems more likely is that you have been gaining your experience at a ‘normal’ - for you with buffs etc - rate, but due to your inexperience within the game (and like me you may just be milling around the place progressing at your own pace - exploring) you haven’t made the Xp gains seen by other, more experienced players.  Factor in the fact that the caves’ xp reward will increase in size according to difficulty and the increase in creature levels found within the final two caves (hard ice and swamp) multiply the primary reward.  Also you didn’t complete a lot of the caves until fairly later on in your game, so you wouldn’t have noticed the xp jump for the lava cave etc because the amount required to level up had increased too. 

I noticed the jumps on all caves as I play practically au natural - no buffs, hardly use free x2 xp and went to the caves comparatively early.  In the early game stages - due to my experience - I was levelling up quicker than you, even with your primal pass.  Now, however, with your knowledge and experience of the game, you have surpassed me.  I haven’t gone into the swamp cave yet and have only completed the hard snow cave once.  I have a scuba mask and gas mask but nothing else.  I’m still on lvl 77 and have been for a while. Don’t fret young Violet, you are doing well.  Try to be proud of your achievements rather than lamenting that you haven’t reached the same heights as others.  Enjoy it.. 

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Oh my word @HavelockVetinari I love you ?♥️ you called me young! lol

im starting to prep for the snow cave, or rather, I am prepping to get a high lvl wolf from the snow cave. I will definitely take note of my exp level before and after. Just have to finish raising my newly hatched argy first - thx for your help with that sir. 

I was just wondering about that actually. Do you have to revive the chosen direwolf with a platform still inside the cave, or can you do that back at base? 

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@ScreamingViolet -  I have a revival platform at my base. See photo - bottom right.  It has been set up so I can tranq any creatures with relative ease.  So, after inhuming said dire wolf -take implant, go home, revive wolfy, rejoice!!

    If my theories are correct then after exiting the cave with the artefact for the first time, you should see a significant jump in xp points - but not as much as the swamp cave as this seems to be the ‘final’ cave on mobile platforms.  I may have to go into the swamp cave for a wee nosey now,  seeing how you easily completed it... 

17D14DD4-4EE6-461F-929F-F29D79F11C2F.jpeg

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1 hour ago, HavelockVetinari said:

@ScreamingViolet -  I have a revival platform at my base. See photo - bottom right.  It has been set up so I can tranq any creatures with relative ease.  So, after inhuming said dire wolf -take implant, go home, revive wolfy, rejoice!!

    If my theories are correct then after exiting the cave with the artefact for the first time, you should see a significant jump in xp points - but not as much as the swamp cave as this seems to be the ‘final’ cave on mobile platforms.  I may have to go into the swamp cave for a wee nosey now,  seeing how you easily completed it... 

17D14DD4-4EE6-461F-929F-F29D79F11C2F.jpeg

Considering my wolfie got through it yours certainly shouldn’t have a problem. Although I did kinda cheat as I had the thick skin buff on. It wasn’t until last night that I realised I could’ve hit this cave earlier as that buff negates the need for scuba gear or gas mask. Oh well!

just take some stim juice to counteract the scorpion venom. Would love to know how much exp gain you get. 

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16 hours ago, HavelockVetinari said:

@ScreamingViolet -  I have a revival platform at my base. See photo - bottom right.  It has been set up so I can tranq any creatures with relative ease.  So, after inhuming said dire wolf -take implant, go home, revive wolfy, rejoice!!

    If my theories are correct then after exiting the cave with the artefact for the first time, you should see a significant jump in xp points - but not as much as the swamp cave as this seems to be the ‘final’ cave on mobile platforms.  I may have to go into the swamp cave for a wee nosey now,  seeing how you easily completed it... 

17D14DD4-4EE6-461F-929F-F29D79F11C2F.jpeg

Just remembered that I’ve got the save files from right before I entered the cave and right after. I might go and jump into the oldest save and see if I find myself getting the same exp boost from completing the cave the first time, or if I can get it by doing something else. Curiosity is going to kill me one day.

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On 10/8/2018 at 11:56 AM, ScreamingViolet said:

Considering my wolfie got through it yours certainly shouldn’t have a problem. Although I did kinda cheat as I had the thick skin buff on. It wasn’t until last night that I realised I could’ve hit this cave earlier as that buff negates the need for scuba gear or gas mask. Oh well!

just take some stim juice to counteract the scorpion venom. Would love to know how much exp gain you get. 

Well,  I had to collect black pearls for the daily request so I didn’t end up going into the swamp cave.  Instead I tamed an ichthyosaurs which was lvl29 but then somehow beached itself and couldn’t move. I used my argy to move it but she wouldn’t let go of it and it died....☹️  Not one to give in, I decided to tame a Meg’ instead.  Tamed it, looked for pearls but couldn’t find any...... bugger’em!!  I was quite ill prepared for the level of attacks received by mantas and other Megalosaurus!  I am abandoning the sea until I complete the swamp cave and tame a school of sea creatures in order to roam the oceans without the constant; “ohpoopohpoopohpoop....... SWIM YOU STUPID FISH!!! WHY AREN’T YOU KILLING THINGS IN TWO BITES!?!?   I WISH MY WOLF WAS AQUATIC!!!.  AAARRGGGHHH, HOW BLOODY LONG DO MANTAS CHASE YOU FOR!!??  HELP!! ANOTHER 5 MEGS’ ARE CHASING ME!! WHERES A SAFE SPOT TO UNMOUNT!? PLEASE DON’T DIE!!”  

I actually can’t wait to return.  It was enthralling.  Walking about on land with a wolf that kills, even the best conversation with just a look, gives one a sense of immunity.  It actually felt like it did when I first started playing..... 

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5 hours ago, HavelockVetinari said:

Well,  I had to collect black pearls for the daily request so I didn’t end up going into the swamp cave.  Instead I tamed an ichthyosaurs which was lvl29 but then somehow beached itself and couldn’t move. I used my argy to move it but she wouldn’t let go of it and it died....☹️  Not one to give in, I decided to tame a Meg’ instead.  Tamed it, looked for pearls but couldn’t find any...... bugger’em!!  I was quite ill prepared for the level of attacks received by mantas and other Megalosaurus!  I am abandoning the sea until I complete the swamp cave and tame a school of sea creatures in order to roam the oceans without the constant; “ohpoopohpoopohpoop....... SWIM YOU STUPID FISH!!! WHY AREN’T YOU KILLING THINGS IN TWO BITES!?!?   I WISH MY WOLF WAS AQUATIC!!!.  AAARRGGGHHH, HOW BLOODY LONG DO MANTAS CHASE YOU FOR!!??  HELP!! ANOTHER 5 MEGS’ ARE CHASING ME!! WHERES A SAFE SPOT TO UNMOUNT!? PLEASE DON’T DIE!!”  

I actually can’t wait to return.  It was enthralling.  Walking about on land with a wolf that kills, even the best conversation with just a look, gives one a sense of immunity.  It actually felt like it did when I first started playing..... 

You crack me up! The ocean can be an Uber deadly place. Especially if you are ridiculously scared of sharks like me - I freak out in swimming pools!!! 

I got the black pearl pursuit yesterday (I think we get a random one out of a pool rather than everyone doing a set one each day) but luckily I had enough of them from free gifts. Speaking of easy daily pursuits, yesterday I had to go to red woods and hang out in a certain spot for ten minutes... the circle included my base lol.

i started on taming an ichthy for another pursuit last night, but it kept crashing so I went to bed. Hoping to succeed at that today. It will, if successful, be my first aquatic tame. I’ve already got a sarco and spino, but they’re not completely aquatic, so they don’t count.

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So it does seem that you are correct my dear @HavelockVetinari I found someone on reddit who also seemed to gain 400k experience from the swamp cave. I’m slightly in disbelief at how unbalanced it seems, although I’m quite happy with the resulting exp boost.

it took me months of playing to reach 400k, so it feels somewhat unbalanced, to say the least, to earn the same amount for a single run through a cave. I know they recently changed it and made it a lot easier, but it wasn’t even a challenge really, not at level 81- which most have to reach to get the scuba gear to do this cave. 

The powers that be should be (and I hope they are in the background) finding and creating ways to make the game harder, or more challenging for the players who have reached the upper levels, rather than making them easier. If they would like to make the game easier for new players perhaps they could make the southern cave the easier one, or better 6et, for the new players, give them a newbie raincoat or something so that they aren’t killed every five minutes. That way they might have a chance at falling madly in love with the game before they want to throw their device at a wall!

oops, that turned into a bit of a rant. Sorry

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Thank you @ScreamingViolet.  I have not long completed the swamp cave - not bragging, but it was surprisingly easy on my wee wolfy.   I took screenshots of before and after, but I also noticed the ‘received 100,000 experience points’ for completion of the swamp cave pursuit and I had gone up 2 lvls.  I had only travelled a short distance on my wolf when the game froze,  then crashed (insert disaster movie music - dun dun Duuuuuuunnnnnnnnn)!! 

Luckily for me, I now save (thanks Vi’) before I enter and just before I exit (due to constant crashes and having to partially re-run) caves.  The game loaded up where I had saved but then didn’t give me any rewards, even though I had the artefact! ??? “Oh no!!” I hear you cry? Oh yes. 

Feeling somewhat panicked that my easy, non-efforts had gone to waste I restored the game from the save slot. This time I also watched an ad for 2x exp.  Upon exiting I received the rewards but noted that I had actually been rewarded 200,000 exp and gone up 4 lvls.  

So your primal pass and any extra buffs added would indeed account for your huge increase in exp. 

i suppose the fact that you pay for added bonuses gives you the benefit of levelling up faster. That’s what you pay for after all! I would be quite irked if I pay monthly only for others with no subscription to rise as quickly as me. 

 

Edit: had over 6k chitin - had to drop about 5k as it was weighing me down! 

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13 hours ago, HavelockVetinari said:

Thank you @ScreamingViolet.  I have not long completed the swamp cave - not bragging, but it was surprisingly easy on my wee wolfy.   I took screenshots of before and after, but I also noticed the ‘received 100,000 experience points’ for completion of the swamp cave pursuit and I had gone up 2 lvls.  I had only travelled a short distance on my wolf when the game froze,  then crashed (insert disaster movie music - dun dun Duuuuuuunnnnnnnnn)!! 

Luckily for me, I now save (thanks Vi’) before I enter and just before I exit (due to constant crashes and having to partially re-run) caves.  The game loaded up where I had saved but then didn’t give me any rewards, even though I had the artefact! ??? “Oh no!!” I hear you cry? Oh yes. 

Feeling somewhat panicked that my easy, non-efforts had gone to waste I restored the game from the save slot. This time I also watched an ad for 2x exp.  Upon exiting I received the rewards but noted that I had actually been rewarded 200,000 exp and gone up 4 lvls.  

So your primal pass and any extra buffs added would indeed account for your huge increase in exp. 

i suppose the fact that you pay for added bonuses gives you the benefit of levelling up faster. That’s what you pay for after all! I would be quite irked if I pay monthly only for others with no subscription to rise as quickly as me. 

 

Edit: had over 6k chitin - had to drop about 5k as it was weighing me down! 

Aha! 

Thank you for your assistance and support in satisfying my curiosity. You have definitely earned your self a big, bold exclamation of. . .

  • YOU WERE RIGHT!!!

or even double right, if that’s possible, as it would’ve been x2 exp due to primal pass and then the broth of enlightenment on top.  Definitely a situation where every boost to the rate of gain is highly recommended. 

Whilst I don’t usually whinge and whine about the regular crashes in game (it’s funny what you can overlook for love) it can be very annoying, like in your experience, when you’ve just completed something difficult or you are in a dangerous situation. Hopefully more people realise the trick to the save files so that a) they don’t lose their game at a crucial juncture and have to restart from last autosave and b) don’t lose themselves, their gear and their tames to death or waste their amber on reviving dead tames instead of rolling back.

theres another trick, actually it’s more of an exploit of a flaw, so that you can rediscover the explorer notes to regain the bonuses from finding the notes. But not sure if it’s considered as a cheat as it only effects single player. 

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Aha! Excellent! Not for the massive ‘you were right’, a simple thank you should suffice, but for the explorer notes thing. Is it reset when you use a mindwipe or nirvana tonic? After collecting all those notes on my wolf,  I would be walking around on top of what can best be described as a furry, canine, anthropomorphic personification of death with the bite force of a small atomic weapon; “Alphas!? What Alphas? They’re all deader than a dead thing in Deathsville.” Smiley face!!! 

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2 hours ago, HavelockVetinari said:

Aha! Excellent! Not for the massive ‘you were right’, a simple thank you should suffice, but for the explorer notes thing. Is it reset when you use a mindwipe or nirvana tonic? After collecting all those notes on my wolf,  I would be walking around on top of what can best be described as a furry, canine, anthropomorphic personification of death with the bite force of a small atomic weapon; “Alphas!? What Alphas? They’re all deader than a dead thing in Deathsville.” Smiley face!!! 

I discovered the notes trick after someone posted to one of the bugs and support threads. Im not sure it’s considered an exploit or not? I think not, it’s single player so no one else is getting hurt... 

Pretend you are Alice and you just fell down a hole. . .   Click me  and all the secrets will be told. lol

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  • 10 months later...
On 10/10/2018 at 4:35 AM, ScreamingViolet said:

Aha! 

Thank you for your assistance and support in satisfying my curiosity. You have definitely earned your self a big, bold exclamation of. . .

  • YOU WERE RIGHT!!!

or even double right, if that’s possible, as it would’ve been x2 exp due to primal pass and then the broth of enlightenment on top.  Definitely a situation where every boost to the rate of gain is highly recommended. 

Whilst I don’t usually whinge and whine about the regular crashes in game (it’s funny what you can overlook for love) it can be very annoying, like in your experience, when you’ve just completed something difficult or you are in a dangerous situation. Hopefully more people realise the trick to the save files so that a) they don’t lose their game at a crucial juncture and have to restart from last autosave and b) don’t lose themselves, their gear and their tames to death or waste their amber on reviving dead tames instead of rolling back.

theres another trick, actually it’s more of an exploit of a flaw, so that you can rediscover the explorer notes to regain the bonuses from finding the notes. But not sure if it’s considered as a cheat as it only effects single player. 

There’s another, even better “trick” that I use with the save feature. If you save right before tributing an artifact, then tribute it, you can look at what you got and if you don’t like it you can go back to your recent save and tribute it over and over again until you get what you want. I used this just recently to get a decent bow and a gas mask for doing swamp cave.

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On 10/5/2018 at 5:33 PM, ScreamingViolet said:

I play in solo mode on ark mobile.

 

previously I have lamented at how slowly I seem to gain experience in relation to others. Despite having a permanent 2x buff from primal pass and having all the free time in the world to play others seem to climb through the levels at lightening speed. It might be worth noting that from my observations the exp gained from killing creatures on mobile doesn’t seem to earn you, or your tame, the same amount of experience that is listed within the wiki on gamepedia. It might not be of any revelance either.

 

today I just finished up collecting the artifact from the swamp cave. Killed a whole bunch of high lvl scorpions, but nothing that stressful as I’m on lvl 81 - wearing my well earned, super spiffy wetsuit and scuba gear, whilst riding my level 55(ish) direwolf. On my way in I saved my game and backed it up, as you do in solo. I also noted our experience. I was on lvl 81 with 412,353exp and my wolf was 4061exp.

after completing the cave, saving, backing up etc, I noticed that I had the pop up saying I had leveled up and could up my stats. I was surprised as when I went in I still had around 38,000 exp points to go. (At least I think that’s right, if lvl 82 requires 450,000) 

 

I was blown away when I saw that I now had 814,119!

im pretty sure I used a broth of enlightenment on myself as I went in, but there’s no way that I earned over 100k points from the cave. It took me months to get to 400k! 

 

Anyone have ave any ideas why this might’ve happened? Have you seen this before? If there’s any devs or moderators reading, do you know what’s going on?

im not complaining mind you, but I sure am curious and would love to repeat it if only I knew how.

 

 

p.s. Can you use potions and such like broth of enlightenment on your mount as well as yourself? And do those buffs stack if we both eat it?

Whenever you enter a cave that you haven’t completed yet, have you noticed that you automatically start a pursuit? When you take the artifact out of the cave, the pursuit automatically completes, so if you don’t look at your pursuits I can see how you would miss them. Those pursuits give a decent amount of xp, but not too noticeable.

It really scales up when you complete the ice cave and swamp cave, as it should, because 1. They are the 2 hardest caves in the game currently (at least in my opinion), and 2. You probably need to be high level to complete them (unless you cheese the snow cave on an arthro like I did) as the swamp cave needs engrams unlocked at level 81 or the tribute from the snow cave, and the snow cave is just plain hard. At those high levels, gaining more levels grinds to a stop because of the high xp requirements, so the levels are welcome from the pursuits.

As for your question about your slow xp gain outside of caves, I also play on sp on mobile and I believe they heavily nerfed the xp gain from sp. As an example, a great way to level in multiplayer is using an industrial grinder, but in sp it gives no xp at all. However, xp gain from pursuits stays constant, so it seems like a disproportionate amount of xp

Completing the snow and swamp cave pursuits gives  25000 and 100000 base xp respectively. With multipliers, that’s a huge amount of xp. Just wait until you complete the trophy room pursuit, which gives base xp of 250000. Make sure you use as many multipliers as you can before completing it, as that should give you several levels.

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Industrial Grinder isn´t even available in Pvp Multiplayer, also, the snow cave was heavily nerfed, and so was the swamp cave. For example, the swamp cave used to give 100,000 xp, not including xp boosts. The snow cave used to give a bit more than that, and with all the boosts on, it gave 2.5 million, on a boosted weekend. Now, snow cave gives 25k with no boosts, and swamp gives 10k. Doing them without 12x is basically a waste of your time, and also you can use a outpost to buy scuba gear and use arthro yeah yeah. The current way to get to 81 and do the trophy room is south, lava, snort potent dust, farm, skylord cave, argy, arthro, swamp cave, snow cave. The skylord cave gives 8500 xp, and it will certainly get you to the high levels with 12x xp.

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